Thursday, October 15, 2009

Microsoft Loses Sidekick Users' Personal Data: Microsoft's mobile subsidiary Danger had a major outage, resulting in lost data for hundreds of thousands of subscribers. The problem was so severe that sales of the Sidekick were suspended and a $100 gift card was promised to people who lost data. FinallyMicrosoft announced that most data was recovered. Losing the data in the first place was a serious enough offense (especially for a paid service), but even more frustrating was the delayed response, and lack of explanation of what failed and why.

Report: Apple developing radio app for iPhone: This comes as no surprise, coming on the heels of FM radio support for the iPod Nano. Also it was known that the latest iPhone and iPod Touch models have FM hardware. Finally after all these years, the iPod joins the ranks of so many other media players, most of which are not even around any more.

The release of Microsoft Windows 7 is only a week away, and PC makers have been gearing up with new models taking advantage of its new multitouch features. I'm sure the marketing blitz is going to be huge. It will also be interesting to see how Apple responds.

Acer Steals No. 2 Spot From Dell In Global Q3 PC Shipments: This may not be as meaningful as it sounds, as sales in terms of number of units were boosted by low-cost netbooks. However, it is possible they could parlay that success in to more expensive models, such as the new multitouch all-in-one PCs.